Dynamo finally take out Pachuca

Tonight, for the first time ever, the Houston Dynamo eliminated Pachuca from a tournament in a 2-0 win. This was especially sweet, because now, finally, the Orange will play in the championship match of an international tournament.

I just got home from the game and I’m too tired for expansive analysis tonight (though Bernardo Fallas has some great words in his blog). Still some impressions from the game tonight:

–Houston deserved the win, though this was not a dominating performance by any stretch. In both halves, the control of play moved from team to team. In the second half, in particular, Pachuca came out of the gate looking much better and more threatening than Houston, but just wasn’t able to put in a goal that the referees would allow. Late in the second half, after the called-back Pachuca goal, Houston took command of the game.

–Pachuca is really a fun team to watch. Their control of the ball was simply in a different league from the Dynamo. While the Dynamo has players whose skill is consistently very good and whose heart is unmatched, we don’t have that mesmerising, top-to-bottom mastery of the ball like Pachuca has. As Brian Ching told the Chronicle, after watching the Tuzos play, you can’t help but want to watch more of them.

–In realtime, the Pachua goal that was called offside looked like it should have been allowed. Watching the replay after getting home only confirmed that the linesman made the wrong call. Not to be too callous, but stuff like that happens in soccer. As I’d be saying about the Dynamo if the same bad call had gone against them, they should have played harder and scored more goals with the chances they had. Statistically, it was a pretty even game, though Houston took more shots on goal than Pachua–it’s simply excuse-making if anyone argues Pachuca lost because of this call and was cheated out of a win. This stinks, having this bad call give any taint to the final result, but it is nothing new to any sport and doesn’t explain away Houston’s 2-goal win.

–After seeing the replay, I’ve got two comments on the Houston goals. First, the Waibel flick on the corner kick leading to the first goal was just brilliant. This was a subtle touch I hadn’t even noticed in realtime, but Waibel’s creativity in skimming the ball slightly forward to the only empty, unoccupied channel in the goal area was critical to allowing Boswell to score the first goal. Craig Waibel this season has been a rock-solid player for the Dynamo, someone we’re beginning to count on as part of many legitimate attack sequences while intelligently holding down defensive duties. Waibel’s effectiveness-to-flash ratio is off the charts.

On the second goal, this was the kind of textbook precision that’s almost too good to really work. Mullan aggressively taking on two Pachuca defenders on the right side before launching a lofty cross plumb across the goal mouth to the shockingly unguarded Corey Ashe was priceless. It looked like no Tuzo ever even saw Ashe, and certainly didn’t peg him for any serious threat on goal. Ashe’s finish was calm and cool–something nice to see in a season filled with Dynamo mishaps in front of opposing goals.

–Attendance: 16679. That’s a good number for late on a Tuesday night, but I simply don’t believe it. It is completely inconceivable to me that this crowd at Robertson was below 20000, something our tailgate buddies agree with. I really thought it was in the 22-24k range, and most polled fans thought it was in the 20’s. This seems like such a drastic under-reporting of fans that either somebody’s computer was busted, or security just let a lot of people in without scanning tickets. I’m halfway expecting a revised estimate of the attendance tonight.

–Finally, we have to hope Atlante wins the semifinal Wednesday night so that the SuperLiga championship game will be played here at Robertson Stadium. Otherwise, it’ll be a final up in Boston at the New England Revolution. Stay tuned tomorrow night to see how things go down.